Experimental Studies on Optimization of WEDMed Tungsten-Carbide Metal Matrix Composite

Abstract

Wire Electrical discharge Machining plays an important role in the field of electrically conductive material machining. The process has grown exponentially in the past decade due to advantages like high accuracy, precision, ability to achieve complex, intricate shapes on components, unruffled by material hardness, less noise, leaves little residual stress on work piece and the advantage of unmanned machining. A stochastic process in nature, it is difficult to determine parameters that improve cutting rate and surface roughness, the main stay of the metal machining industries. Tungsten carbide is widely used in tool and die making industry mainly due to its extreme hardness; wear resistance, toughness and high temperature stability. Finding optimized parameters for machining performance improvement and optimization would help the manufacturing community. Design of experiments with an orthogonal array of L 27, on four critical parameters On-Time, Off-Time, Wire Speed and Peak current with three levels had been carried out. The experimental results were optimized using Taguchi analysis. Analysis of variance was done. Confirmation tests validated that the results for material removal rate and surface roughness, 5.021mm3/min and3.26μm with improvement. The most influential parameters were off-time, wire-speed and on-time for material removal rate and wire-speed current and on-time for surface roughness. The optimum levels were reported.